The present invention is directed to a system for de-fleshing hides, skins or the like.
When de-fleshing skins or hides, the fatty and other particles are removed from the flesh side since they are undesirable for further operation in leather production. The skins or hides to be de-fleshed are in a swelled state, that means the mass of some species, e.g. cow hides, reaches 50 and more kg. Moreover, the surface of these hides is very slippery and thus manual handling of them is very laborious. Up to date de-fleshing is made entirely on a machine which consists of a knife roller, pressing rollers and a swinging-out supporting roller. When operating such a machine, the operators transfer the hide by the central part of its length over the supporting roller which is then swung into its closed position. In this position, the rotating knife roller begins to cut away the undesirable fatty and other particles from the flesh side of the hide. Simultaneously, the supporting roller together with the pressing rollers begins to shift the hide out from the machine. Thus, only the first half of the hide is treated requiring the operators to turn the hide, put it back again into the machine and treat the second half in the same way. It is obvious that this process of de-fleshing hides is very tedious and demands very hard work on the part of operators.
Apparatus is also known for de-fleshing hides which consists of two de-fleshing stations which are interconnected by a transfer bridge. The first de-fleshing station is attached through its outlet chute to the rear end of this transfer bridge, while the second de-fleshing station is attached through its outlet chute to the carry-out conveyor. Both the de-fleshing stations consist of standard de-fleshing machines as described above. The operators manually put the hide into the first de-fleshing station in such a way that only its first half is de-fleshed and thus treated, it falls through the outlet chute onto the transfer bridge. The hide is then led into the second de-fleshing station where its second half is de-fleshed falling through the outlet chute onto a carry-away conveyor. The arrangement removes the hard turning of hides, as well as the repeated insertion into the machine and final removal therefrom. This apparatus nonetheless has certain disadvantages in that it demands two relatively expensive de-fleshing machines which, in the event of failure of only one of them, requires the entire apparatus to be put out of operation. Thus, the technological procedure of pelt preparation and continuous supply of the subsequent workplaces for further treatment is undesirably interrupted. Another disadvantage is that one operator himself must control the closing movements of the supporting rollers of both the de-fleshing stations which, because the dimensions of the apparatus are relatively large, necessitate very careful and skilled operators.
These machines have been equipped with a timing member which senses the moment the supporting roller of the first de-fleshing station is closed and after some delay, which was previously set, the supporting roller of the second de-fleshing station is automatically closed. Since the treated hides have various dimensions, various time differences occur between hides as they fall from the outlet chute of the first de-fleshing station. As a result, the supporting roller of the second de-fleshing station does not close at the right moment every time and, thus, the second half of the hide is badly de-fleshed. Moreover, the outlet chute of the first de-fleshing station does not satisfy the conditions of controlled transition of the hide between the de-fleshing station and the transfer bridge. The swelled and slippery hide, in many cases, slides through the outlet chute in a non-controlled manner and falls down onto the transfer bridge in a variously bent mass of skin. In this state, the hide is not capable of being fed into the second de-fleshing machine. Therefore, to prevent the entire destruction of the hide and possible damage to the knife roller, the movement of the transfer bridge must be stopped. The continuous process is thus interrupted and the productivity of labour is decreased.
It is the object of the present invention to overcome the disadvantages of the prior art and to provide a simple apparatus and system by which de-fleshing of hides and the like can be accomplished in a more labor saving and economical manner.